$41 million to help reduce rape kit backlog

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Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and San Jose Rep. Mike Honda discuss a plan to reduce the backlog in the analysis of rape kits. (Henry K. Lee)

About $41 million has been earmarked to help expedite the nationwide processing of rape kits, which preserve evidence of sexual assault, authorities said Tuesday.

Pending final budgetary approval, the funds would help local police agencies and crime labs address a severe backlog in the analysis of some 500,000 rape kits across the country, said U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, who joined Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley at a news conference at her office in Oakland.

Honda, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he has also reached out to FBI Director James Comey, asking that the agency amend its policies and requirements to allow for better use of private sector labs for DNA testing and analysis. Honda asked that a pilot program be implemented in Alameda County.

The private crime labs, all certified by the government, can “move through these kits much faster, in a more expeditious way,” O’Malley said.

But currently, there’s a backlog because government crime labs have to review much of the work done by private labs. Under a program proposed by Honda, the government would only have to review a sampling of the private crime labs’ work.

“We’re going to bring tomorrow’s technology to today’s solutions and really tap into the resources that exist for us today that are not being utilized in very many of our jurisdictions,” O’Malley said.

Rape victims who have endured the emotional and physical trauma of sexual assault should not have to see “samples sit on the shelf, untested, because of administrative issues,” Honda said. “This only adds to the victim’s pain and suffering.”

Earlier this year, O’Malley, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, announced legislation designed to encourage police agencies and crime labs to hasten their processing of rape kits.

The bill would urge police to submit rape kits to crime labs within five days and ask labs to process the evidence and create DNA profiles — which would be compared to state and national DNA databases — within 30 days. Law enforcement agencies would be required to notify sexual assault victims if their rape kits aren’t analyzed within those time limits.

O’Malley has noted that a major factor in the backlog is the belief by many labs and police agencies that they only have to examine kits in which the attacker is unknown to the victim. She said important evidence was being lost, as some rapists attack both acquaintances and strangers.